cover image The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't Help the Poor

The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't Help the Poor

Charles Karelis, . . Yale Univ., $30 (190pp) ISBN 978-0300120905

This slim volume presents a radical analysis of poverty that turns conventional understandings of the subject upside down. Karelis, a philosophy professor at George Washington University and former president of Colgate, begins with a brief overview of the received wisdom on and conventional arguments regarding poverty, which he argues have been shaped in large part by middle- and upper-class sensibilities of thrift, discipline and long-term thinking; as a result, public policy initiatives have proven largely ineffective. With rigor and passion, Karelis offers a radical reconsideration of the problem, resting on twin premises: the importance of distinguishing between enjoyment and relief (e.g., eating ice cream vs. taking aspirin for a headache), and acknowledging that these motivators/rewards have a different effect on the poor than they do the well-off. Karelis argues that while the middle and upper classes seek an even distribution of “pleasers” to increase “positive satisfaction” over the long run, those acting from a position of insufficiency work for “relievers... goods that reduce pain, unhappiness, or misery” in the moment. As such, what is rational or efficient behavior for the poor is not so for the well-off, and vice versa. Though rich with insight on a subject with broad appeal, Karelis's treatise is not an easy read, particularly for those unfamiliar with economic theory; readers unafraid of technical forays into the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility and the Epicurean Fallacy will find this important work quite rewarding. (July)